This extended weekend seemed to last forever but I still am not sure where it went. I had so many plans and was looking so forward to celebrating the holiday weekend.

My girlfriend and I met some friends for sushi on Friday. We went to Tokyo Sushi since it is a favorite of both my gf’s and some others in the group. I have eaten a lot of raw fish and weird things on my various work journeys around the world but this was my first true sushi experience. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised. 75% of what we ordered (and it was a lot…it came in a big wooden boat) was good. It seems I like things with spicy tuna and do not like thinks with shrimp which makes senses based on past eating experiences. With that said, it is not something I am chomping at the bit to go back and eat. I can name about 20 different meals that I would prefer to eat first because of taste and price. We followed the dinner up with a St Louis tradition of eating Ted Drews. Two of my friends went and got their dogs so we could fit in with all the other dog couples…lol. The place was packed since the weather was gorgeous and the Cards game was just getting over. The concretes were good as usual.

I went back to my roots and went swimming at a friend’s house in rural Arnold on Saturday. A good time was had relaxing in the pool, shooting some pool hoops, and enjoying some adult beverages. My girlfriend and I were exhausted after a long day of sitting in the pool so we relaxed at my place for the night. We watched She’s Out of my League. I did get some good laughs but overall I wasn’t impressed. For some reason, I thought Seth Rogen was in this movie but it was only his lackeys.

I had a 4^th of July party on Sunday. It was a small get together but was a good time. My gf made delicious turkey pin wheels which I could eat for days. We made the 1 mile trek to see the air show on the Arch ground for it to start raining. We saw one F-14 and some old planes but they cancelled the show before the much hyped Harrier made an appearance. I guess it’s more of a reason to go to the air show at Scott in September. We were hungry so we decided to go get some food and skip the B52’s performance. We started walking and all the really close places like TGI Friday and Hooters had a long line. What amazed me was that a ton of restaurants were closed. For example, St Louis Bread Company was closed even though it almost right in the heart of the fair and right next to all the places that had a packed line. So we walked to Wash Ave to find more of the same. We finally made our way all the way back to Side Bar to find it open. I wish it would have been closed because we had a horrible experience. We found a table but had to ask for menus after sitting for about 5 minutes. After about an hour of waiting for our food, we realized there was a problem. We did not think we would be  in a time crunch for the fireworks but we now were. They gave free chips and salsa to almost everyone in the restaurant. We finally had enough and the waitress told me that had a new cook (which was going to be fired). We asked to cancel our food after we told her that we wanting to catch the fireworks. We ended up waiting another 10 minutes in which they packaged our food to go and gave it to us all for free. I at least have to commend them for that. We made it to Kiener Plaza to watch the fireworks but I would rather been on the other side to see the lower displays. Needless to say, it was a good site.

I felt like Monday almost did not exist. I think I slept like 11 hours and watched a whole lot of nothing on TV the entire day. I was such a bum. I had fried chicken for lunch and hot dogs for dinner so my laziness was compounded by the unhealthy eating. So much for the “Vegas Diet.”

This was a pretty action packed weekend for me with all kinds of plans. I hit up my favorite Mexican restaurant, Mi Ranchito, for dinner on Friday with my girlfriend. I normally always get the lunch enchilada meal but got a mixed combo to “branch out.” I swear that I will order something totally different one day. We followed that up with going to the grand opening of Copia on Washington Avenue. The place looked fantastic. They installed a sliding roof on the patio for when the weather is good/bad. The one thing that troubled me was a “corking fee.” We wanted to try some wine. We saw a bottle that looked good. It said $8 for glass and $16 for bottle so we figured the bottle is a better deal even though we only wanted a glass. Well they ended up charging us an $8 corking fee. I thought such fees were only when you brought your own wine into a venue…not when you buy it from them. That is super deceptive adverting and is not right. The bartender even made a comment about how stupid people are for not realizing the corking fee. We followed it off with a visit to Shiver. Shiver is a new vodka bar next to Copia. I read an article earlier in the week about how you can drink vodka in a freezer. They provide parkas to keep you warm. Supposedly it is popular in other big cities like Las Vegas, New York, and LA. It was a good atmosphere even though it was pretty empty. I would describe it like Lure (down the street) but without a cover and cheaper drinks so much better than Lure. But it seems like Lure lowered their cover. I can swear paying in the $15 to $20 range when it first opened. $10 is more reasonable but still the highest on Washington Avenue.

I went to a friend’s pool party on Saturday. The weather was awesome plus I did not get burnt which is a major win. We also watched the US soccer game. All I can say is that FIFA needs to make some major changes. I understand why United States has not embraces soccer like the rest of the world. These are the changes I suggest (1) add replay or more officials…the calls and missed calls have been ridiculous. (2) be able to rescind cards after the game like the NBA does with technical fouls. I have seen some horrible calls that have knocked players out of the next match when they should not have been. (3) make more calls on flops. (4) stop the clock when the play is dead. Is it that hard to stop the clock?…every other US sport does it. Stoppage time does not work. Watching how the Ghana players were just falling and laying down on the ground to delay time was ridiculous. No sports outcome should ever be determined because of the delay tactics of the other team. I don’t care if people say every team does it…that doesn’t make it right.

I went on a serious cleaning binge on Sunday along with knocking out a couple shows off the DVR. I am glad Entourage is back. I also like the new realm of True Blood. I thought last season wasn’t that good and definitely like this new storyline better. I have an appointment to get my wood floors professional cleaned this week which has be excited. I did something to my floors the first time I cleaned them and they have never looked the same.

I went and had pizza at the Stable on Friday. My girlfriend raved about the pizza and we had been talking about going for months. We started out with the bacon wrapped dates. They were delicious. We also had salads which were good. We then got to our pizzas. We wanted to order different things so we got two different ones and looked like pigs when they had to set up a tray next to our table for our second pizza. I got a sausage, pepperoni, and onion pizza which was awesome. My girlfriend got the jerk chicken pizza. She liked it but I really did not. It did not have tomato sauce on it. Instead it had something very similar to the Harry and Davis sauce. We finished up the night with watching Alice in Wonderland. It was good but I think it would have been cooler seeing it in theater in 3D.

Saturday was my good friends wedding. It was a great day. The wedding and reception were really nice. I had a lot of fun but I think I got heat exhaustion. It was pretty hot during the pictures and the whole day wearing a complete tux. I quit drinking around 7 but managed to get a little sick in the parking lot around 11. I had a headache and was light headed the whole reception…all signs of heat sickness.

I have no clue what I did on Sunday. I think we did some shopping and caught up on the DVR.

• I have not played video games since I came back from Chile almost two months ago. Pretty odd considering I was addicted before I left.
• I can not get on top of my DVR situation.  I have my DVR 75% full which is about 900 GB. I have complete seasons of Chuck, Dollhouse, Tudors, Flash Forward, V, and probably others. I have over 5 episodes each of Simpsons, Parks and Recreations, The Middle, American Dad, America – The Story of Us, and many others.
• I do not know what to think about this shift from the Big 12. I thought it was a money issue but I read last week that MU has gotten around $22 million a year in the Big 12 revenue sharing program where the Big 10 programs get 20 million. Doesn’t make sense. It sounds like the whole league could fold if MU and Nebraska leave which is eerie. I read a stupid article yesterday that said KU and K State would be out to dry. Both are major sports programs so I am sure they will have no problem finding their way into a strong conference.
• I love that I somehow got new HD channels with Charter. I believe 6 in total. Comedy Central is huge and the Disney channel is not bad. Bravo is also a big one even though I do not watch any shows from there. My girl friend can now watch Drop Dead Diva in HD on Lifetime now too.
• I had a brief stroll down Wash Ave last night and saw a lot of development started back up again. The market that was started before Culinaria opened looked to be going again and almost finished. There is also a convenient store next to Lucas Park being built. Copia looks to open any day and the Vodka bar next door to Copia is open.
• The Lakers Celtics series is pretty good but I think the referees are deterring from the game. There has been a lot of missed calls in terms of fouls….more than normal on both sides. It seems life refs automatically call a foul if the player falls down but don’t call one when players get whacked in arm. The 2  minute replay review needs to be looked at because the Odom-Rondo reversal was ridiculous. Rondo fouled Odom (and it was easy to see) on a rebound that made Odom knock the ball out of bounds. The refs originally called it Lakers ball and reversed. Obviously he would not have knocked it out of bounds if Rondo would not have knocked is right hand off the ball.
• Looking forward to Vegas. More and more people keep signing up plus I can’t wait to hang out with friends I have partied with in a while.

I thought this past weekend was going by super slow on Sunday when I woke up (which is good) but here I sit on Monday and wonder where the time went. Isn’t it always like that?

I went to the Cardinals game with some of my boys on Friday. We hit up Harry’s before hand to enjoy the great weather and patio scene. The game was a fun time, the weather was perfect (not too hot), and Waino was pitching so of course we won. I went to Paddyo’s for a while before I went home to crash.

Saturday was pretty relaxing. I hung out with my brother and saw Lucabrasi at the RFT Music Festival on Wash Ave. I followed that up with a quick dinner at Ozzie’s then went to Pepper’s for a 30^th bday party for my cousin. I tried to end the night by watching Where the Wild Things Are but gave up about 30 minutes in. It is already back in the mail because I don’t think I would ever get into it and there are much better movies in my Netflix queue.

Sunday was also a relaxing day. I knocked out some errands with my girlfriend, made a delicious spaghetti dinner, and suffered through a Lakers loss (even though it was a good game but with some bad calls). I also flipped back and forth between the Cards game and the Chicago/Philadelphia NHL game. Two comments… (1) I do want Chicago to win the Cup which is hard to say. The series has been fantastic. (2) Why does the NBA switch formats to 2-3-2 in the finals? It does not make sense. It seems to give more of an advantage to the team that doesn’t have the best record because all they have to do it win 1 game out of the first 2 on the road and then have 3 home games to close it out. The finals games are spread out further too which makes it even easier for 2-2-1-1-1 schedule.

Wow, what a fantastic weekend! Everything seemed almost perfect. There were a ton of things going on this weekend and I had a bunch of things to choose from like Cards/Cubs action in Chi Town with a bunch of my grad school friends or Rib Fest and all of the shows (right next to my condo) but I happily chose a weekend at the Lake of Ozarks with my girlfriend’s family. Most of you know me; how could I pass up a weekend of water filled fun?

We took off Friday to head down to the Lake. We were staying at my gf’s dad’s house in Camdenton. I have always been on the Osage side of the Lake so was excited to see the difference. We got down there around 2PM, took a quick tour, and immediately hit the water for some lounging around the dock. The water was amazingly warm and relaxing. It was awesome. We ate some pretty good pizza that night and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

I had my first true fisherman experience on Saturday (in my opinion). I have fished off docks and lands numerous times as a kid but have never really done any fishing on a true fishing boat. It was a fun time but we caught nothing. We didn’t even see a boat nearby catching anything either. My opinion is we started a little too late (around 10AM) but we value our sleep.

Once we got back to the house, we ate a quick lunch and took out the big boat for a cruise and to cove out. It was a lot of fun. I was definitely amused by the difference in the sides of the lake. I have never been on a holiday weekend on the Osage side but have heard horror stories. This side of the Lake was actually pretty quiet for Lake of the Ozarks in my opinion. There was a lot more pontoon boats and I don’t think I saw a boat over 30ft the entire time. It was also interesting seeing entire parts of the Lake with no houses. I did catch a fish that night while fishing off the dock at night. It was the only fish caught by anyone the whole weekend. It was a 14″ crappie which apparently is pretty big and is worth of mounting to a wall.

We took off early on Sunday to drive back to the Lou and knock out some errands. We hit a quick BBQ and passed out early.

My girlfriend hosted a BBQ on Monday for her family. It was fun with good food. I also cleaned my BBQ pit that was in storage for two years. I am a little bummed about it because I did not store it properly. I guess the grease produced moisture under the cover which caused some mold and rust. I cleaned it good but have my doubts. I will fire it up in the coming weeks to see how it is.

Its hard to believe that there will be no more Lost in my life. I did read one article on CNN that said the DVD for season 6 will have 20 extended minutes of the season finale but I haven’t seen that mentioned anywhere else. I actually did not have great expectations going into the finale based on how this season has progressed. I was pleasantly surprised by this finale and not for the reasons I thought I would like the finale. There were no real mysteries about the show solved like time travel, special people, why the island has magical power but they did answer what the flash sideways are which blew my mind (after I realized what happened).

I was really amazed by the first two hours. I had constant chills throughout the first hours because I never expected to see a lot of the old characters and then also see them reunite in their special way. The writers handled this beautifully and helped cement it as the best show ever. I was confused with the last minutes as I couldn’t figure out why they were all going to the Church (and how they knew to go there). I then realized that was the same Church as the Lookout where Mrs Hawking was. I thought they were going to do some weird time travel again to the island. Alas, I was totally wrong. It wasn’t till the show was over and I had a friend explain it to me to understand what went down. In the end the island was not purgatory (like people had speculated since season 1) but instead the flash sideways were. What through me through a loop was the flash sideways timeline but it was arbitrary since people in that timeline died and lived different lives outside the island but then all came back to the flash sideways in the end.

Alot of what happened even was a little expected like:

1. Hurley being the next #1 after Jack. I thought this all along (or at least the last several episodes) since his character did not make much sense for how much they focused on him. I at least thought he would be the new Richard.
2. That Juliet was Jack’s ex-wife in the flash sideways. There was a reason why they waited till the last episode to show her identity.
3. That Juliet was going to be the doctor that helped Sun after she was shot. I was expecting this because I was expecting something worse since she was shot in the stomach. Who better to help than the baby expert.
4. That the final scene would have Jack laying in the same patch of bamboo as the opening scene of the series. It just seemed sensible knowing that the bright light was so close.

What I did not forsee:

1. The meaning of the flash sideways — everyone dies but they don’t have to die together.
2. That everything that happened actually happened (i.e. time travel and alternate timelines, the incident (which I assume the nuclear bomb blowing up was the incident), and so on.
3. Ben being the new #2. I was expecting Ben to be the new MIB especially when he was helping to lower down Jack. There was a lot of similarities to the scene with Jack and MIB lowering down Desmond.
4. That all the characters like Rose, Bernard, Vincent, Shannon, Boone, and others would be in this episode.
5. I knew Jack was going to be laying in the bamboo patch at the end but I did not know how or why. I was just hoping that the episode was not going to end the same way as it started ….ie a time loop where it is all played out again.
6. The high Christian context. Jack was basically Jesus. Someone even made the point that he was stabbed in the same place Jesus was as he was carrying the cross.

What really confused me:

1. The last scene of the plane crash on the ocean. I believe this was to show us that they still always crashed but what threw me through a loop was that we never saw the plane parts in any of the island scenes the rest of the previous episodes after the pilot. It made me think that the Ajira flight crashed too.
2. Jack’s son—Both his mom and dad did not belong in this timeline so how did he even exist? Or more importantly why did he need to exist? Did it make Jack a better person and have more meaning so it didn’t make him the druggie alcoholic he was in the flash forwards?
3. The Aaron and Walt storyline in the early seasons. The only thing I can think of is that it somewhat relates to how Jacob and MIB were chosen as candidates at a young age so maybe Jacob thought he also needed a young kid as a replacement. With that said, I do not think this is the case and it really came down to a storyline where the writers went in a different direction and just hoped we forgot about it.

In the end, Lost was about two things: redemption and emotional connection. The writers used all kinds of crazy story lines and mythologies to get to the end point which confused people (including me) but it made a fantastic story and emotionally ended the show on a hight point for me.

My girlfriend and I went to some of the Augusta, MO wineries on Saturday for a friend’s 30th bday party. My girlfriend had been planning it for the past month. She decided on the Mount Pleasant winery since this same group had such a blast last year at the same winery. The weather was amazing. There was barely a cloud in the sky and the temperature was in the mid 80′s.

Unfortunately, Mt Pleasant was a huge disappointment. We were the first group to basically get there at 11:30. We grabbed some tables and went back to the entrance for the tasting. Upon looking at the list, we realized that the choices were pretty dismal. We were told that the sweet wines were moved to Branson but we could still buy them at local stores like Walmart. My big problem is why would you not offer all the wines even though they might be made at different locations? I just got back from Chile and went to several wineries where they made only certain wines at each locations but all the locations carried all the wines. Don’t you want to market your products? Especially in Mt Pleasant’s instance that their Augusta location has always been their bread and butter location (in my eyes). This was huge for us since my girlfriend and I both prefer Merlots. The second big problem was the winery changed their policy and did not allow food to be brought in. Thus we were told after being there for an hour that we needed to take our food out to our cars. Every single table had food and was equally distraught. They told us we could buy food at the market. The problem with this statement was that the normal market was under renovation so they didn’t even offer winery basics like meat and cheese plates. Instead they offered pulled pork sandwiches which they supposedly ran out of anyway. We continued to eat our food out of protest (along with everyone else) until we were told again a hour later. We argued that they did not state their no food policy on their webpage not are they providing an alternative source for food. They explained it was a trash issue which is just hogwash….that is the logistics of running a business. The other big issue I failed to mention was the price of the wine. It was outrageous. We were buying $33 bottles of wine which is ridiculous. Like everyone else, we decided to go somewhere else. It was actually pretty sad because the place had probably 4 or 5 small groups at 3 o’clock on a perfect day. Their policy has to be a losing proposition in their revenue plan. I know they lost a couple hundred dollars from our group of 15 since we went somewhere else.

We went to Sugar Creek because we heard from other groups that they allow food. We were a little worried that we were not going to get a table being so late. We arrived just as a group was leaving to secure a table so it was pretty awesome. The place was packed. There was a band, all the tables were packed, and even the grass was full of people on blankets. It was a great atmosphere. People even brought their own tables and chairs. We had a huge spread so it was good that we could enjoy it here. Plus we got two bottles of wine for $31 and it was better tasting so goodness all around. Also, Sugar Creek specifically stated their policy on what can and can not be brought unlike Mt Pleasant. I would definitely go back.

The one other issue I had with both wineries was their no outside water policy. I understand trying to prohibit liquor, sodas, and other liquids but water? It promotes safety when it comes to alcohol. Especially in the hot sun. Even Busch Stadium (the mother of all rip offs) allows you to bring in water. Even more is that their was another DD checkpoint on 94 which has to hurt business for the winery. I was responsible and had only one glass of wine at both locations but brought a group of people that was drinking. Should I be punished by having to buy water when I am bringing revenue to their business? I think not.

It was a pretty jammed pack weekend for me that was a lot of fun. Friday was the first Cards game I went to with the “boys.” I say that in quotation marks since only one guy was there. It amazing how much changed in two years thinking how we had 5 seats in the Bank of America club which was a blast. Needless to say the game was very fun and the Cards won so it was a plus. I met some other friends at Paddyo’s and did a little dancing. It was a good night.

I went to the Mt Pleasant and Sugar Creek wineries on Saturday. I will have a more detailed post about this later in the week but Mt Pleasant was a big disappointment while Sugar Creek was awesome. The wine was great, the weather was perfect, and we had a lot of fun. Plus, I did not get sun burnt or even red.

I put on my domesticated hat on Sunday and did some grass cutting and yard work in the blazing sun and heat (supposedly it tied the record for St Louis heatwise). I got some errands done and then settled down to watch the best TV shows ever….Lost! I am amazed about the show the more and more I think about it (which is a lot). I will have a separate post about it later in the week too. I missed the Lakers game and they lost (is that the theme of this paragraph?).

Here are my thoughts on Lost and my experience as we hit the stretch run for the final episode.

I first started watching Lost right before the second season started. My friend Matt kept telling me that I needed to watch this show. Especially since I was depressed that HBO’s Carnivale was not picked up for a 2^nd season. Carnivale was the first show I really got extremely into and read a lot online about theories and what not. So I downloaded (I know but this was before they were online) the first season of Lost and watched all the episodes straight in 3 days while I was on a business trip. I was addicted and could not wait till the second season.

The first two seasons of Lost were the best for me. It took two seasons to get a full understanding of the main characters back stories and see how everything was related. All the other seasons are just filler now that I see how the series is ending. The reason I say this is because it seems like the writers kept throwing out more and more questions which seem like they will never be answered. I know I hate to think this but the show would have been perfect in 3 seasons. Going into this last season, I was expecting it to be jammed pack with action and finally understanding what was going on with this island. Instead, the writer chose to continue with a lot of fluff and give half answers. I may seem upset and I am but I have come to the reality like many other Lost followers that it is not the intention of the writers to provide answers. Instead they want to focus on the theme of redemption. It a great storyline but it makes it seem like a lot of the episodes and what we thought we major occurrences and plotlines were worthless. This is why I think the show would have been better in 3 years. The Lost blogs keep referencing the idea that the 1^st season was written so the show could have ended hitting the writer’s storyline if it wasn’t picked up for a second season. I agree that it is possible after looking at some of the facts.

Even though I am complaining about the ending, I am going to be so disappointed to never have Lost again in my life. I know that sounds creepy and weird but I have never been into a show this much. It is the one show that I have to see as soon as it is on. It is also a show I spent countless hours reading about online and discussing with my friends. This is why it is the best show ever! The downfall of the show is that you basically can’t start in the middle thus why viewer ratings went down every year (even though I did convince two coworkers to watch all the episodes in a couple months before the start of this season…and they loved it). It is also another reason why the show should have only been 3 seasons.

And one theory that I can’t wait to find the answer to about the show is why the island was sunk in the beginning of this season. Everyone has speculated because the people found a way to kill Flock, MIB, or whatever you want to call him. The last episode gave a new possibility that the MIB can use Desmond to destroy the island. Is it possible that Lost could end with a sad ending?…I hope not but Carnivale did which made we crave it even more.

I can’t wait till Sunday and dreading it all at the same time!